Clayton Hardiman: Sometimes the post-game interview isn't at all like we imagined

AP FILE PHOTOIn this Dec. 5, 2009, file photo, Portland Trail Blazers center Greg Oden reacts after falling to the floor in the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Houston Rockets in Portland, Ore. The Trail Blazers say Oden will undergo a procedure to "remove debris" from his right knee. The often-injured 7-foot center had microfracture surgery on the knee in 2007, which caused him to delay his rookie season.

Imagine you are a basketball player.

No. Not just a player. Make that the best. Performing magic with a basketball is simply what you do. You play at a level that makes people rub their eyes. To fully process it, they have to watch the replay once, twice and again.

OK. Now imagine you are a 10-year-old imagining you are that player.

Down at the playground stood such a 10-year-old, bouncing a ball under a hoop. To the outward eye, he was playing alone on a cracked cement court. But in the movie inside his head, he was performing before a crowd of thousands.

Clayton HardimanYou might wonder how I could tell. I could tell because I’ve been there.

It’s been a few decades, but still it felt familiar. There was a familiar rhythm to his movements. The way he was pounding the ball, there was a sense of deja vu. I could hear the crowd counting down the game’s final seconds.

He faked left, went right. In his mind, the defense was flummoxed. He got free and put up a shot. The buzzer went off and the shot went through. Game over.

Fantasy over, too -- or so you might think. But actually it was just beginning. Now came the post-game interview.

Of course, new arrivals at the playground would have seen only an eccentric 10-year-old having a conversation with a basketball. They wouldn’t have seen the reporters, the TV cameras or crowd members mugging in the background.

Let’s face it. Child or not, this is what most of us live for. We long for the post-game interview. Look at me, we shout sing-song to the world, like children hanging upside down from the playground bars. It means separating ourselves from the ordinary. It means making the world take notice.

In a talk with a fourth-grade class, I remember asking the pupils what they wanted to do when they grew up. I thought I might hear a kaleidoscope of careers -- astronaut, lawyer, fire chief. But fully two-thirds of the boys and a good number of the girls had something else in mind altogether. They wanted to be famous.

That’s not what they said, of course. They said they wanted to be basketball players and football players. They said they wanted to be singers and rappers and actresses.

We all want to stand out somehow. We yearn to climb the ladder and get within grabbing distance of that elusive top rung. Rarely, though, do we think about how that might change who we are.

I recently read an article from Grantland.com, a website that focuses on sports and pop culture. The article is making headlines of its own. It was based on an interview with pro basketball player Greg Oden.

When Oden entered the National Basketball Association draft in 2007, he was the first college player chosen. He had the most lethal three words in sports attached to his name -- can’t miss prospect. But now, after a series of freak injuries that hijacked his career, he stands as one of sports’ historic disappointments. In the article, Oden touches on his problems with alcoholism. He speaks of his yearnings for a private life.

I don’t like throwing the word “courage" around. People use it for everything from song lyrics to touchdowns. But I do think there was a kind of courage in Oden’s openness.

And maybe it’s something we need to hear. Maybe we need to be reminded that different circumstances make a different world, and we become different, too. In a flood of changes, it can be easy to lose the person you used to be.

I’m not saying Oden’s story should be required reading for 10-year-olds. He is a human being, not a 7-foot cautionary tale. But five years ago, Oden was living the dream. Now his dream has less to do with fame than inner peace.

Some of us live our whole lives longing for the post-game interview. This is not just about losing sight of the game in that longing. Sometimes the player gets lost as well.